creek

I wasn't born here. I was born in Olympus and it never snowed there. Green Death was close and came out of the sky at night. Death was on our side. We were pretty skinny and very fierce. We never quit in Olympus and I never got over leaving. The worst thing about leaving Olympus was moving to a place that didn't have ice cream trucks. The musical, ice cream trucks that brought frozen heaven on a stick with looney lyrical tunes piped soothingly into developing medulla oblongatas leaping sprinklers and quickly dashing for coinage at the first note are fondly remembered. The drivers wore sharp, white clothing with white hats and shiney change dispensers. The ding-a-ling man cometh. The next worst thing about leaving O was moving to Bacchus' backyard. Now Bacchus is more fun than you can shake monkeys at but his betrayal is quick. We have the same grandmother. One Christmas at her house, he informed me which room the presents were in. I walked down the hall and opened the door. I didn't look in the room. I didn't want to know. Knowledge is over-rated. An hour or so later, Grandmother returned. The first words out of Bacchus' precious little mouth,
"Endymion looked at all the presents." Fatherjacker. Bacchus is fun, but his betrayal is quick. He drinks expensive wine and used to know silly, beautiful girls. He knows only one now and she's billboarding. As a man sows, so shall he reap. He dated Emotion briefly. She wasn't silly, but she was extremely beautiful. We had gone to see theatre together with Emotion and her sister, Passion. I thought Passion was very attractive and a few months later asked her for more time. We shared some time together but she said no and I never ask twice. Emotion lured me close months later.
"Passion might not like this," she said.
"Do you like this?"
"Yeah. Bacchus could take lessons from you," she said.

Augusta, Bacchus's mom, is elegance times twelve. Her face is symmetrical perfection with a faint hint of softness that prevents total blindness upon viewing. The hint is faint and merely a sculptor's illusion. I've often gotten lost in a private paradise of amber harvests and rose-petaled milk baths on proleterian shores of production while looking upon her beauty. She always treated me like the best chocolate nibble in the box always saved for special consumption. I have seen her rage and thanked my (beautiful) guardian angel's protective, titanium wings for covering my visibility. Bacchus says things sharp-tongued sometimes. We weren't that little or that big when he spoke with misplaced wit at his villa one day. Outside the sun was shining, but it was dimmed by the fury Bacchus had just incited in Augusta. I'm not sure if he miscalculated her humor or his but something went bad wrong and it went quickly. Augusta went about setting him straight and popped and tossed his sweet little self all across the room. I really found the intensity amusing (once I was certain that this was a solitary beating and had slipped into a nearby watercloset where I nearly laughed myself past silly and soiled loin cloth).
Bacchus is territorial, but hey, who isn't? We had a lot of good times together. I've learned many things from him. I learned how much more I prefer kindness to butt-kicking. I learned how much fun goofing off was from Bacchus and he is a good teacher. We have enjoyed much good wine and danced with intelligent women. We did have to dodge fire arrows once or twice but nobody chooses every step with perfection. Do they?
Now Bacchus' pappy ain't got no softness. Well, he does now but didn't when we had subhuman height. It was raining heavy drops one sleepy Saturday when Bacchus et moi decided we just absolutely, positively without equivocal shade had to perigrinate to Zimba's, the closest trading post on our global locators. It tweren't far. We made the painful mistake of not informing, though consciously, the full humans of our whereabouts. By the time we made it to the creek, we were already soaked through wet with zero thoughts about discipline and it made one hundred percent fun sense to ride the overflowing waters the rest of the way. In we jumped and the water was warm and fast. Sink, push off bottom, break surface, breath, repeat. We dolphined the rest of the way to Zimba's and whatever we needed and whatever we got faded quickly behind the eager thoughts of returning to the creek. Maybe we did backtrack a time or two and spent an extra moment more than was necessary. When we did return down the hill to Bacchus' villa, yep; Augusta met us halfway down. Tongue-lashed, I was completely sympathetic to Bacchus this time. After we had been marched into the kitchen and stood to attention at the refrigerator, white with a sporty black trim, Bacchus' pappy took off his belt and I knew that fun never wandered far from full human view. I took my licks and it felt like hades being napalmed. Visit to Zimba's: tanned ass. Creek dolphin swim: priceless.